For Valentine's Day
by The Small Hobbit
Summary: Written for Valentine's Day, Sam/Annie, who probably deserve better.


Hearts

Gene opened his office door, "Cartwright, in here, now."

Annie looked up surprised, but followed him back into his office. Two minutes later she came out in floods of tears and practically ran out of CID.

Half an hour later Sam and Chris returned from interviewing drivers following the theft of electrical goods from a warehouse.

"Where's Annie?" Sam asked Ray.

"Ran off sobbing after the Guv spoke to her. Told you a plonk couldn't hack it."

Without another word Sam marched into Gene's office and banged his fist on the desk.

"How dare you treat Annie like that? You have no right to shout at her."

Gene looked up. "What are you going on about?"

"Don't pretend with me Hunt. You don't just treat her like one of the men, you treat her harder than one of the men."

By now Sam was leaning over his boss, looking as if he would hit him at any moment. Gene stood up, put his hands on Sam's shoulders and pushed him firmly onto a chair.

"Listen, Gladys, there's no need for you to get your knickers in a twist. As I was trying to tell you I did not shout at WDC Cartwright."

"But Ray said ..."

"Ray said what exactly?"

"That she was crying and left CID."

"Funnily enough, Inspector, people do cry for reasons other than that I've shouted at them. And if you would give me the courtesy of actually listening to me I will share with you one of the other reasons."

Sam nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Phyllis took a call from Annie's grandmother. Her grandfather's had a heart attack and she's had to go to the hospital."

Sam looked at the floor and finally muttered, "Sorry Guv."

"Yeah well, next time think before you try to ram both feet in your mouth at once."

Sam went back to his desk and immersed himself in the witness statements. Chris noticed that he kept reading the same statement but assumed there was something significant in it and thought no more about it.

In fact, Sam's thoughts were far away. He'd come back to the office, looking forward to the evening, when he and Annie had been going out for dinner. He had chosen a restaurant away from their usual haunts and had been planning to propose to her that night. He wasn't entirely sure what her reaction would be: he knew she cared for him and enjoyed his company, but there were times when he would catch her looking at him and he wondered whether she would actually want to marry him. It had taken him several days, and a number of journeys on which he had taken the 'scenic' route, much to Gene's annoyance, before he had found the perfect venue. He had rehearsed the words in his mind until he was sure of exactly what he was going to say. And now it was all for nothing.

Five o'clock came and the others left for the pub. Sam stayed behind, ostensibly to catch up on the paperwork. He didn't know when he'd be able to speak to Annie. Once again he fumed about the absence of mobile phones, with one she could have contacted him and told him how her grandfather was; without one, she would have to find a payphone and there was bound to be a queue, always assuming it was working. For the second time that day he banged his fist on a desk.

Flowers

Annie moved around her grandmother's kitchen finding plates and cups and saucers; the best china of course, plus the second best as they weren't sure how many would be coming back. Her grandfather hadn't regained consciousness following his heart attack and had died the same evening and today was the day of the funeral.

As she laid out the crockery and filled the milk jug and sugar bowl, she thought back over the past week. The Guv had been very understanding when she'd phoned the following morning to give him the news. He'd told her there was no problem with her having the time off and had expressed his confidence in her ability to help her grandmother. ("Yer Grandma'll need someone with some sense about them")

She'd spoken to Sam once, but it wasn't easy. Her grandmother didn't have a phone and although the next-door neighbours never minded her borrowing theirs in an emergency she didn't feel she could ask to use it to phone her boyfriend. On top of which everyone would hear the conversation, which didn't matter when it was, "Guv, I've got to stay with me Grandma," but made any form of intimate conversation out of the question.

So she'd had to use a public phone box – not the nearest, because that was out of order again – but one several streets away. She'd waited until she thought Sam would be back from work, by which time it was dark and raining heavily, to go to the phone box. He'd been in, but the conversation had been stilted: "Sorry to hear about your grandfather", "Is work busy at the moment?" so that by the time she got back to her grandmother's house soaking wet she had decided not to phone again.

She thought about the evening out that they had planned, was it really only a week ago? She'd been excited and had spent hours deciding what to wear. She'd been hoping that Sam had been going to propose to her that night, she couldn't think why else he would have chosen such a posh restaurant. Now, she was sure that she had misread the signs, that he saw her as nothing more than a friend, a companion. She began to cry and remembering her Granddad the tears flowed faster.

She scarcely noticed the florist's van when it pulled up at the gate. Although the wreaths would go straight to the church, a few friends had sent flowers to the house instead. Her grandmother came into the room, carrying a bunch of red carnations.

"Annie, love, these are for you," she said.

Annie read the label, which simply said "To Annie, from Sam". She looked up at her grandmother, who smiled at her as she said, "Red carnations mean 'my heart aches for you.'"

Chocolates

A few days later and Gene called Annie into his office again. "WDC Cartwright, we are going back again to Elliott's Warehouses in the hope of finding out what exactly those drivers know. And this time you are coming with us, because Inspector Tyler has met with a singular lack of success at getting the answers to our questions."

The said Inspector Tyler muttered something along the lines of "I found out more than you did" but one look from his superior officer and he decided that this wasn't a line that was worth pursuing.

The three of them had therefore returned to the warehouses, where Gene had promptly employed his own patent brand of questioning, which had, perhaps unsurprisingly, resulted in a couple of names being suggested, one of whom had previous form for burglary.

It was a sunny day in early spring, so leaving Gene to make a few final arrangements, something about a chair leg that had been broken whilst interviewing one of the drivers, Sam and Annie wandered down to the canal. This was the first opportunity they had had to be together since Annie had come back to work and neither was sure what to say.

"Thank you for the flowers"

"Yeah, well, I remembered something my grandmother once told me."

Annie's heart gave a small lurch; so he had known what they meant.

"My grandmother told me too."

"Grandmothers are good like that."

They lapsed back into silence. 'Hell' Sam thought, 'I've got to say something, I can't go on like this, not knowing.'

He took a KitKat out of his pocket, broke it in two and offered Annie half. 'Now or never,' he thought.

"Will you marry me, Annie?"

For answer, she threw her arms round him and practically suffocated him with a kiss.

Gene Hunt, watching from a distance, smiled. Of course he hadn't needed Cartwright to help with the questioning, but it had seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

"Just call me Cupid," he said to himself.


End file.
